Swimming Through the Ashes of Another Life
by Ruby Sunrise
Summary: Ororo is devastated by Forge's callous attitude towards her and tries to drink her problems away, only to come home and discover a worried friend in her apartment. One-shot, for once!


It was 4:30 in the morning, and Ororo Munroe was doing everything she could to get back upstairs without waking anyone else up. The problem was that she was drunk, plastered beyond recognition, and she couldn't even see the damn stairs, let alone the keyhole for her door. She'd gone out that night, angry and alone, and didn't tell anyone where she was going because she knew they'd all just say, "Oh, let's go out together! It will make you feel better!" _Yeah fucking right, _she thought. _I bet none of the bastards here even noticed that I wasn't around._ She blinked back angry tears, the only thing that she had to show for all the alcohol she'd drunk. _Wasn't I freakin' crying enough when he left today? Shouldn't all the shots I took be numbing the pain right about now? _Apparently not.

As she tried again and again to put the key in the hole, she was more than a little surprised when the door suddenly swung open of its own accord. Of course, when she saw who was at the door, her shock quickly turned into annoyance. "Remy, leave me alone."

"I don' think so, chere. Why you left tonight, wit'out even tellin' **me** where you were goin'?" He reached out to touch her shoulder, but she brushed past him angrily.

"I just wanted to be alone, okay?"

"Don' look like you were alone. Seems t' me you had Jack Daniels an' Jose Cuervo to keep you company all night."

"Better than any other men, okay, Cajun? Now please leave." She leaned on the doorframe, trying desperately not to fall over, even as her legs shook with rage and drunkenness.

"Cajun? Stormy, you ain't never called me that in yo' **life**." Remy shut the door with one hand and watched her stumble over her own two feet as she attempted to regain her suddenly lost balance. "Start talkin', chere. You been gone all night and I been worried about you. I'm yo' best friend, an' you know you're gonna tell me anyway, so jus' spit it out. What happened t'night? Why you so angry?"

Ororo turned away from her friend so that he wouldn't see the tears forming in the corners of her eyes. "Nothing."

"You freakin' liar. You never drink dis much unless you're devastated. **What happened**?"

Ororo mumbled something as she tripped her way over to her fridge.

"Beb, I didn' catch dat. Say it again."

Her entire body shivered with rage as she turned around to face him, using the refrigerator door for support. "Forge came over today, all right?"

Remy sat down in the chair nearest to him in utter shock. He allowed Ororo to go back to rummaging through the fridge as he tried to tease his frenzied thoughts apart. Forge was Storm's on-again, off-again boyfriend of many years, and every time he came back into her life, she was exorbitantly happy for awhile, only to be crushed when he left her again. It happened over and over, and he kept turning up like a bad penny. If Remy ever saw him in person again, he was sure he would kill him. "What did he do?" He stammered out, his throat suddenly dry.

Ororo turned around one last time to glare at him before trouncing off into the bathroom, holding a stale cup of French fries in her hand and a nearly-empty bottle of ketchup.

_Nothing good then, _he thought to himself, before getting up to follow her.

Remy found Ororo stripped down to her underwear, sitting in the bathtub, running much-too-hot water over herself, in tears. "Oh god, 'Ro, you gonna burn yo'self." He reached over and turned the water down, testing it with his finger to make sure it was an okay temperature. After rolling up his sleeves, he kneeled by the side of the bath and cupped her cheek in one of his hands. "Don' cry, girl. I hate it when you cry."

Ororo leaned over the edge of the tub to hold onto Gambit, sobbing as if she would break in half. "You want to know what he told me?" She pulled back to look her friend in the eye. "Well first of all, we had sex, and I thought that meant he was finally going to stay around for good this time. I don't know why I fall for it every time, but after we were done, I asked him if he wanted to stay with me for a few days until he got all his stuff moved back into the mansion."

Remy stroked her hair, waiting as she hiccupped back another sob. _He's a fuckin' dead man._

"I mean, come on, it's been like three years! We used to date, and then somehow it turned into this late-night, once-every-six-months crap where I'm waiting for him to call and he never does. Do you remember we once made plans to get _married_? How the hell did I go from having that, to having this?"

"I don't know, mon ami," Remy murmured, heartbroken to watch her go through all this again. "I don't know."

"Well, after I asked him that, he wanted to know what the hell I was talking about. He hadn't even been planning on staying the night! How flattering, right?"

"Dat fuckin' bastard. I can't believe it."

"I know. So I asked him, once and for all, to tell me if he ever loved me. He said he never did, but I should call him sometime if I just wanted to fuck again." Ororo's face contorted in anger and humiliation.

"I can't believe you didn't come get me, 'Ro. I woulda killed him befo' he left th' mansion! Why didn't you fry him?"

Storm took a shaky breath. "I just couldn't. What would be the point? I still love him…even if he doesn't want me."

Gambit let go of her and turned off the water. His shirt was soaked, but it didn't matter. He stripped it off and threw it on the floor, then knelt back down next to his best friend. Not knowing what to reply with, he began to skim the wet French fries out of the tub: she had dropped them all in the bath, along with the ketchup bottle. As he made a pile on the floor, she picked up the last of them and contemplated her handful. "What the fuck am I doing with my life?" Her eyes rolled a little; she was clearly still intoxicated.

"I don' think we should talk about dis now, Stormy."

"No, we're gonna talk about it now. Right now, in fact." She got to her feet, slipping a little, only saved by the fact that Remy stood up in time to catch her. "I am a disgrace."

"You are **not** a disgrace." His eyes were hard as steel as he spoke, leaving no room for questioning. "An' you know what, if Forge makes you feel dat way, you should recognize it right now, an' realize dat he is **not **de man you should be spendin' de rest of your life wit'."

"Then who is, Remy?" She asked with scorn in her voice. "No one in the world notices me, it was only ever him! Everyone else seems to think I'm untouchable, like I don't want or need anyone's company. But you know what? I'm so damn lonely, I could kill myself." Her eyes filled with tears.

"Don' you say that, don' you EVER say that!" He practically yelled at her. "What would I do wit'out you? Huh? What would I do wit'out de most important –" He broke off, his eyes brimming with pain at the thought of losing her. Angrily, he swiped at the tears that had threatened to fall. "You're de ONLY one who understands me! De only person who knows who I really am. If I lost you, I'd lose de few good parts of myself. Don' you ever say that shit t' me again, 'Ro. I'll do whatever it takes to help you get over scum like Forge, but don' you dare let them make you think that yo' life is worthless!"

Tears streamed from Storm's eyes and she sat down again in the bath. Still drunk, she wondered if any of this would make sense in the morning. "I'm tired, Remy. I'm tired of being the consolation prize when nothing better is around."

"You don' deserve t' be treated like that, 'Ro; no one does."

She put her hands over her eyes, trying to block out her headache and her anger and her sorrow. "I'm mad that I can't _make _it work, you know what I mean?" Remy nodded even though she couldn't see him, and waited for her to continue. "Like, anything that goes wrong with the X-Men, I can pretty much fix it. If a kid is having problems with his schoolwork, I can tutor him. If there's a bad guy, there will always be a strategy I can devise to defeat him. But nothing _works _with Forge. No matter what I plan to say or do, the ending's always the same."

Gambit cleared his throat, trying to tactfully place his next words. "Listen, I know you don' wanna hear this right now, or probably ever, but dere's a reason for dat, chere." Her face was still covered, but he could tell she was listening. "This is the hardest thing in the world for me t' say, beb, but he just…doesn't love you." He had been prepared for her tears but when none came, he was confused. "Ororo?"

She removed her hands and looked at him. "You're right." Gambit waited, unsure of what to do. "I mean, there's nothing else to say except that you're right." Suddenly, her face crumpled in sadness again, though. "But for now, instead of being right, can you just hold me?"

Her sobs were heartbreaking. Remy stripped off his pants as quick as he could and set himself in the tub right behind her. He pulled her back onto him, cradling her to his chest, making sure that the water still covered her so she wouldn't be cold. Her tears were rivulets, mixing with the bath water. He stroked her hair, keeping its dripping tendrils from her face, murmuring comforting words in French over and over again into the crown of her head. _God, please, just don't let him come back, _Gambit willed silently. The prayer seemed to reverberate off the walls, filling time and space, but Remy couldn't help feeling that it wouldn't be enough.

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***Author's Note: I hope you guys liked this little one-shot! It **_**will **_**be a one-shot, nothing further will come of it, because it's meant to be just like a little glimpse into one of Storm and Gambit's possible lives; they won't discover that they love each other in this story or anything, it's just a portrait of him being there for her and worrying about her like a best friend does. Please review though, you know how much I love to hear your thoughts! And thanks for continuing to read my late-night meanderings, everyone :-)**


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